Still Waiting for New Instant Film

When will the New 55 project actually have a product? When I began to dabble in analog film photography again after a long 20 year break I quickly realized that the world had changed. In the old days commercial photographers would use instant film to verify that their composition, exposure and camera where as expected. This would give them a high degree of predictability insurance against the human goofs that can and do occur during a photo shoot. Using the "Polaroid test shot" was the way I learned to prep for a shot which could sometimes take hours to compose, focus, light and adjust. As the saying goes time is money and while not the least expensive thing in the world Polaroid film was far cheaper then taking everything down, going home, waiting a couple of days for the lab and then finding out that your shot isn't any good. While I was not shooting for profit or gain this helped prevent the inevitable disappointment from having a lot of bad sheets of film. The products and materials that simply were no longer available in the market became a real obstacle.

So I have been following with some interest the development of "New 55". It is a skunk works project that has been attempting to develop not just a replacement for Polaroid 55 black and while instant 4x5 film but an improved product. One that would produce not only a good posative but also a good working negative. With Fuji leaving the 4x5 instant filme market what choice do we have but hope that some other creative entrepreneur is successful at bringing new and improved products. Unfortunately while they seem to be making good technical progress they are finding funding and capital to launch the actaul production of the new product very difficult. This means that what looked to be just around the corner a few months ago is pushed out even further. I will post a link to their blog here, look to the end and also place it in the resources section so that if you like you can read the actual post by the developers themselves. We can only hope that as the economy improves someone with capital will find this a viable investment. New 55 Instant Film Blog

Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.